1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to mutual display extension, cooperation and sharing among a plurality of terminals, in particular to a method for operating an object, such as a cursor, between two terminals as well as a terminal using the method, which can improve the efficiency of cooperation between two terminals spaced by a viewing distance.
2. Description of the Related Prior Art
Currently, to share information, two computers may extend their display parts mutually while cooperating with each other, especially when the two computers cooperate in computation within a viewing distance. In some of the existing solutions, a remote control method is adopted for the two computers, where one of the two computers performs control and desktop sharing on the screen of the other. Since the desktop of the latter is under a complete control and thus cannot implement any other task, the efficiency is severely reduced. Besides, the same screen content is displayed on both of the computers, resulting in a 50% discount of display efficiency. Although it is provided for a remote control mechanism, the above method can be applied to the control between two computers spaced by a viewing distance. The disadvantages are apparent, that is, only one party can operate at any moment, and only the desktop of the controlled party can be viewed.
Patent document 1(CN200510099693.5) provides a method in which two host computers output display content to one display simultaneously, and then the keyboard/mouse inputs of the both parties are coordinated in a communicative manner. In this method, two personal computers (PC) are connected to a monitor and to input devices, such as keyboard, mouse. Video signals supplied from the PCs are written, via buffers respectively, to a memory for video signals corresponding to multiple pictures. This method requires an additional display, a corresponding memory and a communication device dedicated to coordination of keyboard/mouse inputs. Thus, the method is high in cost and inconvenient in use.
Patent document 2(CN01812134.9) employs a time division method, which uses a set of keyboard-mouse input devices to output keyboard-mouse signals to two computer systems, in order to improve the efficiency of information delivery between the systems. In this method, there is only one keyboard-mouse operating system, which cannot be manipulated simultaneously by two parties. Further, the two computer systems cannot be controlled at the same time, since the method is a time division one, that is, one period is for communication mode where operation is made on the second terminal, and the other period is for non-communication mode where operation is made on only the host computer. Apparently, such method has no contribution to the increase in the efficiency of cooperative computation.
Patent document 3(SYNERGY TECHNOLOGY, http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) allows computers having different operating systems to share a single mouse and a single keyboard and thus facilitates the user operating on several computers. This method adopts a trans-platform fashion and set a master-slave relationship. In this way, the cursor of the single mouse can be shared by these computers and returned to the master computer through a hotkey when it roams onto the other computers. This method also has obvious drawbacks, that is, when operating with SYNERGY technique, the other computers can be controlled by only the keyboard and the mouse of the master computer, thereby inhibiting the cooperation of and multiple computers by multiple persons.